Wednesday, May 29, 2013

M-m-m-m-my lacuna

The recent Lyric Opera production of "Oklahoma" caused me to realize/admit that, to my shame, I've never seen that musical -- not on the stage, not on the screen. Oh, I've heard most of the songs (all of them, actually, having listened to WFMT-FM's broadcast of the opening night), but somehow this signature American cultural experience has eluded me.

In turn, this realization prompted me to remember the parlor game "Lacuna" that I named 10 years ago and explored in a couple of columns with my colleage Mary Schmich:

July 29, 2003 To: Mary SchmichFrom: Eric Zorn

I have a somewhat embarrassing admission to make today and hope that you do as well.

If so, we can play a round of Lacuna, a parlor game I invented a while back and just now named.

"Lacuna" is a smarty-pants word meaning "gap" or "empty space," and
all you have to do to play is admit to what you believe to be the most
glaring gap in your cultural background:

The renowned literary work or author you haven't read, for example.
Or the great movie you haven't gotten around to seeing. The musician or
composer whose works you've never heard. Maybe the museum you've yet to
visit.

The object is to be the only player with this particular gap, and, if
possible, to set the other players reeling in heartfelt disbelief.

The few times I've played Lacuna--it's actually more of a
conversation starter than an I-win-you-lose-ha-ha game--I've noticed
that some players can't resist the urge to show off by citing, as their
most glaring gap, James Joyce's "Ulysses" or some other intellectually
and literally hefty novel.

They seem to feel that their desire to read such a book reflects well
on them, as does the fact that they are so widely cultured that they
have to go deep into the thickets of art before finding unfamiliar
territory.

Others go the opposite direction, listing something common and
trashy--"I've never read a Jackie Collins novel"--in what amounts to a
boast, not an admission. All proper Lacuna entries must be tinged with
genuine regret.

The idea for this game came to me when a TV tabloid show announcer
referred to some Hollywood couple as "a real-life Romeo and Juliet," and
I felt the pang that every mention of that tragedy provokes. You see,
somehow, I got through junior high, high school, college--including a
Shakespeare course!--and all the years since without reading the Bard's
most famous, accessible play.

So that's my entry. For a tiebreaker, I've never seen an episode of "Cheers," which I'm told is very funny.

Lacunae? Moi? Why, I've seen three-quarters of all "Cheers"
episodes. I've read half of "War and Peace" four times, which counts as
having read the whole thing twice. I even know that the plural of
"lacuna" is "lacunae."

But, OK, there are a couple (million) gaps in my knowledge, the
biggest of which is golf. That's right, champ. Golf. The golf gulf in my
brain is bigger than Lake Michigan.

I also could confess to never having started, much less finished,
"Moby Dick." And I've never set foot in IKEA. My gaps range from high to
low, but all are puny compared with my lack of knowledge about a game
that makes you and three-quarters of the men I know go gaga.

I don't know the rules or the terms of golf, but my golf gap runs
even deeper: I can't even begin to fathom why so many men are obsessed
with balls and putters. And while I know that, yes, women golf, too,
it's the mania of the men I know that leaves me dizzy.

What is it about knocking little balls around a lawn that rips men
from their beds at dawn? That consumes them (read: you) in conversation?
That prompts them to sneak away on all-guys' weekends?

My idea of a golfer was shaped by the golfer I knew first and best--a
smoking, drinking Southerner crazy for his regular round at the Macon,
Ga., country club. My beloved grandfather. For years I assumed all
golfers were 65 and Baptist, and reeked of cigars. Then one day I woke
into a world where every guy of every age, faith and lifestyle was a
putter. A world in which The New York Times consecrates its front page
to golf, as it did just last week with a story about golfers' twitches
known as "yips."

I know you're itching to explain it all to me--the rules, the thrill,
the Zen of grass and sky and golf carts. Please. Don't. I'm saving that
space in my head for the rest of the "Cheers" episodes.

August 2, 2003

To: Mary SchmichFrom: Eric Zorn

My dreams of earning a vast fortune as the inventor of the parlor-game craze that swept America in 2004 have shattered.

This
week's e-mail included a friendly note from Dick Goerne of Wheeling
pointing out that characters in David Lodge's novel "Changing Places"
play a virtually identical game to the one I introduced in our column
Tuesday: The object is to name the most famous or important book that
you haven't read (mine includes movies and other cultural experiences)
but that you believe all other players have.

I named my game Lacuna, after a Latinate word meaning "gap," but Lodge has a more memorable and descriptive name: Humiliation.

He's
free to do battle for royalties with the anonymous correspondent who
claimed to have played a late-night dorm-room can-you-top-this game in
college called "I've Never ..."

It sounded
distinctly, um, unliterary in its thrust, though all this prompts me to
observe that identity is analogous to Swiss cheese--seeing the holes
helps you understand it.

Speaking of
analogies, my in-box also included a comment from Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi pertaining to our column Thursday on how the SAT test
will no longer ask students to ponder those tricky "A is to B as C is
to . . . ?" questions.

I wrote to
Csikszentmihalyi, a professor of psychology and management at Claremont
Graduate University in California in part to intimidate you with how I
know how to pronounce his name, in part because he's an expert on
creativity and in part because I was sure he'd agree with me that it's
a shame to lose this tool for identifying creative thinkers.

But
Me-high Chick-sent-me-high-ee agreed with you: The analogy "test does
not pretend to measure creative thinking, but logic," he wrote, "and
unfortunately it has to do so by relying on language, which is very
dependent on cultural capital." He added, "Over-reliance on
&lsqb;the SAT&rsqb; as a tool for choosing our next generation
of leaders is dangerous, so I welcome any attempt to limit its
hegemony."

But my e-mail also included the
great news that I'm sole heir to a Liberian fortune, which will arrive
as soon as I send over my bank account numbers, so who needs him? Who
needs parlor games?

You get any interesting mail this week?To: Eric ZornFrom: Mary Schmich

Lesson
of the week: It's socially safer to reveal your religion, your
politics, and your perversions than to admit who makes you laugh, or
doesn't.

"I was confounded by your stated
preference for someone like Chris Rock over Bob Hope," wrote Arlene M.
Kelly, who went on to contend that Rock, with his vulgar language, is
more offensive to women than was Hope, whose jokes I'd called sexist.

Nancy
Pred, too, was horrified by my praise of Chris Rock--horrified that I
put Rock ("brilliant and lightning quick," she wrote) in a good-humor
category with "Everybody Loves Raymond" ("plebeian and dull," said
Pred).

Betty Aulenbach also had some words
on Hope and sexism: "You say that when you caught up with his act, he
just seemed like a lecherous old guy fond of sexist jokes. I am years
older than you --just turned 8 -- so I remember what he
was like in the 1940s. Namely, a lecherous young guy fond of sexist
jokes."

Keith Kleehammer wrote to defend
Hope's humor as transgenerational. "I believe that later generations
can still find the humor in a funny situation (you need not know
anything about the Depression or World War II to laugh at comedies made
in the 1930s and '40s.)"

Current sources of his hilarity: Steve Martin, Dave Letterman, "The Daily Show," the Onion and Will Ferrell as George W. Bush.

He
did not mention "Da Ali G Show," though Chris, a barista at Peet's
Coffee in Chicago, recommended this HBO British import as the funniest
thing on TV.

Then there was Ted Sanz, who wrote, "Bob and Ray, dudes!"

"Bob
Hope," he wrote, "was the foundation of the canned laughter generation.
The laughs are nervous waiting for the real joke. Sit through a
five-minute Bob and Ray routine from 40, 50 years ago. Their humor will
always stand the test of time."

But the
funniest line I heard all week was not about humor, it was about golf.
Responding to my determined ignorance of the sport, golf fan D. Bowman
sent this, attributed to Mark Twain: "Golf is a good walk spoiled."

Now that's funny.

Posted at 10:22:33 AM

Comments

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In addition to the classic Gordon MacRae-Shirley Jones-Rod Steiger movie version, there is a PBS concert version of the show with Hugh Jackman doing a pretty nice turn as Curly. Seems a bit odd at first to see the Aussie Wolverine in the role, but he nails it.

Where are the Trib title checkers today? Taking a really long weekend? I just don't see how the word lacuna is going to drive any search engine traffic here. Paint me terribly disappointed in this shocking title lapse.

I'm pretty sure I said this last time you played this game -- I've never seen an episode of "Seinfeld." Until the final episode, I'd also never seen "Friends." Our household now owns nearly four sets of the entire series (missing a few seasons here and there!).

I find it hard to believe you've never seen "Oklahoma!" though -(as you're a musical kind of guy) -- though maybe that's because my kids did musical theater in high school and in the community and I've seen it more times than I can bear to count. I HATE it. The music is great, but the main characters are so utterly unsympathetic I can't stand to view them.

Despite my father having played "Slim" in a high school production of Oklahoma, I've never seen a performance, nor am I familiar with the majority of the music. I might be willing to correct this via Hugh Jackman.

I don't know that I've ever sat down and watched, start to finish, an episode of Seinfeld. Or The Simpsons. Or South Park.

If you watch the movie version of Oklahoma or Carousel, make sure you see the 55mm versions.
Due to the impossibility of filming both the 35mm & the 55mm versions at once & technical limitations in converting one to the other, both movies were filmed twice, once for the 55mm camera & again for the 35mm camera.
In Oklahoma, Frank Sinatra was supposed to play Curly, but when he showed up on the set the first day, he found out about the double filming & walked off, so Gordon MacRae was quickly hired to replace him.

Like Beth, I've never seen an episode of "Seinfeld". Only one of "Friends" (the Brad Pitt Thanksgiving episode). No Simpsons, South Park. None of anything on "cable" (I don't have enough cable to have the stations that have those series).

I've seen Oklahoma by HS & College players, or community players. My sister went to see the Lyric re-mounting & thought it was great. II think she was in one of the HS productions I saw; years ago, Lane Tech used to "import" girls - this was when they didn't admit girls there - to be in the shows. She was in South Pacific with a guy playing Luther Billis - his name was Adrian Smith at the time, now it's Adrian Zmed (he went back to the original family name). Anyway, I think they did Oklahoma one year too. The choreographer in this Lyric prod was the original "dream Laurie" in the original production, so she restored the original Agnes DeMille choreography. Oklahoma was the first real musical - before there were "revues", but not a story with music like this. Quite revolutionary!

"I don't think TV shows belong in the category, since they generally amount to a version of "I don't own a TV.""

I love that people try to pull that these days, followed by "I watch it on my computer." As if that means they're not watching TV and somehow makes them superior, especially since we're in a golden age of TV right now.

Oh, we have a television -- three, in fact!. I don't watch it that much, but there are occasions when nothing but good, mindless television will do. Part of the reason for the lack of "Seinfelt" and "Friends" at the time was that my girls were little, and we just didn't watch stuff they couldn't watch, too. And this was in VCR days -- half the time you'd never watched what was taped.

I am so jealous of you Carrie. You get to watch Casablanca for the first time. It is my favorite movie ever ever.

I'm also slightly jealous of those who can watch Friends for the first time. Some of the episodes are just normal sitcom fare, but some border on brilliance. Like the one where Chandler is trapped in an ATM with a supermodel. Or Ross and Monica's grandmother's funeral. Or SPOILER ALERT the entire arc where "Ross says Rachel" (at his wedding to another woman).

I've never attended a football game at any level - professional, college, high school, Pop Warner, nuthin'. And it's not as if I dislike live sports; I've attended untold numbers of baseball games, a fair number of basketball games, and even a handful of hockey games (a sport that doesn't really interest me). Maybe it's a cost thing. With only 16 games per season, Bears tickets aren't exactly cheap.

About "Change of Subject."

"Change of Subject" by Chicago Tribune op-ed columnist Eric Zorn contains observations, reports, tips, referrals and tirades, though not necessarily in that order. Links will tend to expire, so seize the day. For an archive of Zorn's latest Tribune columns click here. An explanation of the title of this blog is here. If you have other questions, suggestions or comments, send e-mail to ericzorn at gmail.com.
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Contributing editor Jessica Reynolds is a 2012 graduate of Loyola University Chicago and is the coordinator of the Tribune's editorial board. She can be reached at jreynolds at tribune.com.